Reconstructive knee surgeries, particularly anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction, are well-known in the art. In general, these methods of tenodesis involve drilling a tunnel through the tibia, drilling a closed tunnel (socket) into the femur, inserting a substitute ACL graft into the tunnels, and securing the grafts to the walls of the tibial and femoral tunnels using interference screws or the like.
One drawback of the described methods of ACL reconstruction is that the formation of the tibial tunnel involves removal of significant amounts of bone material. U.S. Pat. No. 5,603,716 discloses a technique for ACL reconstruction that avoids the above-noted problem by forming sockets in both the femur and the tibia using a coring bone harvester. The harvester is impacted into bone to a desired depth so that bone material collects as a bone core within the harvester tube. The bone core is extracted from the bone socket using a simultaneous twisting and pulling motion. Such harvesting of bone cores in the joint is technically difficult.
Accordingly, the need exists for a method of ACL reconstruction that provides tibial and femoral socket formation without the need for extracting a bone core to form a bone socket and to avoid drilling through growth plates in skeletally immature patients. There is also a need for a minimally invasive method of ACL reconstruction that provides drilling of femoral and tibial sockets independently of one another and minimizes incisions of distal cortices and reduces intraarticular bone fragmentation of tunnel rims.